


Carry That Weight

by allthebeautifulthings9828



Category: Supernatural
Genre: 1960s, Alternate Universe - 1960s, Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Awesome Benny, Benny Cooks, Benny Lafitte & Dean Winchester Friendship, Big Brother Dean, Brother Feels, Castiel Loves Dean, Civil Rights Movement, Closeted Dean, Dean Loves Castiel, Dean Plays Guitar, Drama, Drama & Romance, Drug Addict Sam, Drug Addiction, Drug Use, Drugs, Dysfunctional Family, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Eventual Happy Ending, F/M, Falling In Love, Family, Family Drama, Family Feels, Family Secrets, Gen, Happy Ending, Hippie Sam, Hippies, Historical, Hurt/Comfort, Inspired by Music, Love, M/M, Music, Musician Dean, Period-Typical Homophobia, Period-Typical Racism, Protective Dean Winchester, Protective Siblings, References to Drugs, References to the Beatles, Romance, Romantic Angst, Romantic Fluff, Sex, Sexual Content, Sexual Tension, Sibling Bonding, Siblings, Sick Sam Winchester, Writer Castiel, destiel au
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-03-31
Updated: 2016-03-31
Packaged: 2018-02-28 20:52:51
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 14,972
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2746640
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/allthebeautifulthings9828/pseuds/allthebeautifulthings9828
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Struggling writer and civil rights crusader, Castiel Novak, fights to support his brothers and sisters after their parents are killed in a 1962 plane crash. He meets Dean Winchester, a guitarist in a band, not long before The Beatles arrive in America in 1964. Their attraction is undeniable but so is the pull of mainstream success for both of their careers—something they won’t achieve if they’re openly in love. Dean and Castiel make their way through the mid-60s trying to keep themselves, their families, and their dreams from crashing and burning. And together, they must save Dean’s beatnick brother, Sam, from spiraling deeper into drug addiction before it kills him.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Twist and Shout](https://archiveofourown.org/works/537876) by [gabriel](https://archiveofourown.org/users/gabriel/pseuds/gabriel), [standbyme](https://archiveofourown.org/users/standbyme/pseuds/standbyme). 



> This story was inspired by one of my readers who asked me to do a 1960s Destiel AU that had a happier ending than Twist and Shout. So I suppose you could say it was inspired by Twist and Shout but it's a very different story. Warning: there are some racial slurs in this story but they are true to the period and portrayed as WRONG. Our heroes are fighting racial and social inequality.

September 1962  
Pontiac, Illinois

A clump of brothers and sisters gathered around a pair of walnut caskets. Heads bowed, they said nothing to one another and barely acknowledged the mass of mourners spilling over the cemetery lawn onto the asphalt path. Only Castiel stood erect, refusing to bow his head when the very concept of prayer didn't save his parents. They died painfully in a plane crash west of Chicago. Television journalists reported the fireball being seen as far away as Milwaukee.

Tessa's elbow jabbed his ribs. She wanted him to bow his head and pray like the rest of them. He ignored her and stared at the horizon with his hands clasped before him. Where was God in that senseless moment of destruction? Where were their parents? Where were the forty-eight other passengers who burned to death? He imagined all of them milling around the cemetery rattling chains like Dickensian ghosts and that horror forced his gaze to the blanket of autumn leaves beneath his feet.

"Cas, come on," Tessa hissed under her breath. "At least act like you're praying with the rest of them. There are reporters watching."

"I don't care. A god that would take parents from children for no reason deserves my silence." He tipped his chin in a subtle direction toward their youngest sister, Hannah, just barely thirteen and shrouded by heavy dark hair and a black minidress. Knee-high socks protected her legs from the biting cold, as did her black pea coat, but she didn't seem to notice the weather through her tears. "You really think God deserves my thanks and prayers when I'm burying Mom and Dad while scavengers take pictures to sell more papers? They'll make money off those pictures. I don't even know how I'm supposed to begin taking care of the rest of you in their places. This isn't right. It's not the natural order. It's a bored deity toying with minuscule lives."

"I'm seventeen now. I don't need to be taken care of," she said.

Castiel scoffed and shook his head at the ground. "You're still in school. Mom and Dad took care of Gabriel and me until we were done with college. I owe it to you and Hannah to take care of you until you're out of college too." His eyes drifted to the caskets covered in blooming autumn flowers. "Mom and Dad would want it that way."

With a shrug, Tessa tucked loose strands of dark hair behind her ear. "I'm not the same. You don't owe me anything. Maybe I'll drop out of senior year and get a job. College isn't for everyone."

"What do you mean you're not the same?" He studied his sister's plump, soft profile and hazel eyes. Though her hair offered typical Novak coloring, it was only a coincidence.

She turned, looking up at him, and communicated the unspoken family truth with a faint tilt of her head.

"Mom and Dad would be so furious at you for saying that; Tessa. You're not the same because you're adopted? Gabriel's adopted too but both of you have gotten the same opportunities as Hannah and me. I got my journalism degree and Gabriel's on his way to becoming a doctor. Plans for you and Hannah won't change now. You're going to college. Hannah's going to college. That's final. You're not going to struggle the same way Mom and Dad did. That's not what they wanted for us."

His sister often carried the weight of the world in the fine lines creasing her face that no seventeen year old girl should have. The wind caught the outward flip of her long, sleek bob and the frosted pink line of fashionable lipstick curved into a subtle grin.

"I knew you were still in there somewhere," she said as her elbow nudged his ribs again.

Eulogizing the lives and senseless deaths of Abigail and Gregory Novak fell to the responsibility of Gabriel. He was the talker in the family. Part of Castiel thought it should have been him, being the oldest, but his 21-year-old adopted brother asked to take that place. It came as a relief, passing it on to someone else. Castiel was a writer. His emotions routinely channeled into the pen on the page but the idea of speaking in front of--well, there were probably hundreds there--it didn't sit right with him. He couldn't sum up his parents in ten or fifteen minutes.

By the time the funeral ended, Castiel couldn't wait to get back to his room. The four of them climbed into the back of a sleek black limousine, and as he stared at Hannah cuddled against Gabriel's side, he realized that was it. That was what was left of the Novak family. It fell on him to keep them together and to keep Hannah from getting removed to one of their aunts. He had some savings but the magazine didn't give him enough work to support them. Gabriel was still in medical school--another expense--and he wouldn't be earning a living for years.

The Novak house loomed over the people swathed in black pouring inside for refreshments and politely hushed conversation. That part of the mourning process never made sense to Castiel. Someone died so let's stuff our faces with cold cuts and fourteen different kinds of chocolate cake delivered by neighbors. He followed Tessa out of the limo but stopped short of slamming shut the door.

"Cas?" asked Tessa, looking back at him.

"I always loved this house," he commented.

Tessa glanced up at the three story structure built the year after the Great Chicago Fire in 1871 by a family who survived it and wanted to get away from the inferno thru witnessed in the city. Most people saw that street as one of those beautiful Victorian spots but all Castiel saw that morning was a roof that needed thousands of dollars of work and support beams in the basement that sagged. Stained glass windows dating back to the turn of the century stared out across the neighborhood from the front door, the second floor landing, and the third floor landing. The house was broken on the inside but beautiful on the outside.

"Okay." Tessa's voice came out small and cautious. She reached for Castiel's hand. "Come on inside. It's freezing out here."

"When I was a small boy, I thought I could fly."

She tugged his hand, leading him down the flower-lined path. "Uh-huh."

"I jumped off the balcony around back. The second floor one off your room. For a second, I thought I was really doing it. I spread my arms out like wings and I pictured myself sailing around the neighborhood on the wind. It was only a second like that but I felt like I was free for the first time. Really free. And then I dropped. Gravity grabbed me and I hit Mom's stone path hard enough to crack my temple. I was free. And then I wasn't."

"Cas...." Tessa's hazel eyes seemed to droop with empathy as well as her own sorrow.

He didn't mean to do that to his little sister. With a heavy sigh, he squeezed her hand and tried to pull himself together. "Let's go inside."

*****

October 1, 1962  
Oxford, Mississippi

"C'mon, boy. We gotta get outta here." Bobby Singer burst into the dressing room and grabbed everything he could get his hands on and stuffed suitcases.

As he wiped sweat away with a rough white towel, Dean Winchester looked at his road manager through the mirror like the old man finally lost his mind. "The hell you talking about?"

"How drunk are you? I said we gotta get outta here. Now. Shit got ugly fast out there."

Dean dropped the towel and grabbed his navy blue button-down shirt. The steady deep rhythm of loud bass vibrated the walls as did the muffled constant hum of the crowd cheering for the second band that took the stage. Other than that, he didn't hear anything to explain his manager's sudden agitation.

"Where are the guys?" Dean asked, concerned about his band.

"Sent 'em to Memphis in a couple of cars already."

"Couldn't wait for me?"

The bearded road manager spun around with the neck of Dean's guitar gripped in his fist like he choked it. "Do you never read the papers? Watch the news?"

Dean shrugged. "Kinda hard to keep up on the road."

"Barnett lost the standoff with Kennedy. The Negro finally got admitted to Ole Miss today and the white folks are pissed. They're rioting out there right now. I'm gonna guess a lot of 'em are coming in from other places 'cause more and more keep showing up every time I look. We don't need to get caught up in this horse shit."

"The Negro has a name, I'm sure," replied Dean with an arched brow. "Don't start talking like these toothless rednecks down here, Bobby. It doesn't look good on you. You're smarter than that." He zipped his bag. "And stop choking Baby."

Bobby rolled his eyes and thrust the guitar at him. "Baby ain't a real girl, you know."

"He didn't mean that, Baby. He's just a cranky old man." With a grin, he pet his guitar like a cherished love while giving Bobby a teasing eye.

Quickly, Bobby and Dean packed up the last of the band's clothes and gear. A car waited outside for them with blacked out windows and Dean wondered why Bobby spent all that money. He certainly wasn't Elvis or anything even if he did give everything up in Kansas to come down to Memphis and chase the music.

At first all he saw outside of the club were a few fans waiting for autographs. He smiled and signed a few things thrust into his hands as Bobby shuffled them along to keep them moving. Some of the girls took great care in the way they arranged their hair and planned their outfits. Of course he entertained them and played the part but none of them would ever wiggle their way into his bed. He couldn't remember the last time he gave a woman that kind of invitation. In spite of the secret, he really did enjoy the attention they offered. When he was on stage, he fed on their shrieks of delight until he really did think he was Elvis.

"Dean! Dean!"

But something else melted into the girls shouting his name. Another sort of shouting invaded their joy. His eyes lifted to the horizon, toward the University of Mississippi, and then he heard the voices on the wind.

"Go home, nigger! Go home, nigger!"

The rage in their voices shot up his spine and he fell still with a pen and napkin in his hand. He exchanged worrisome looks with Bobby.

"Ladies, you need to get home. It's not safe here." The way Dean spoke surprised even him with the level of sincerity and concern for their well-being. They were, after all, the people who followed him from the beginning and would make him a bigger star someday.

A blonde whines and pouted with her friend. "But we wanted to see you."

"Trust me. I'm nobody. I'm not worth your life if things get even uglier around here. Those people out there are not good. Listen to me. Get out of here before you get swept up in this mess." It seemed apparent they weren't going to listen until he was gone, so he turned on the charm. He cupped the blonde's cheek and gave her the gentle green eyes that made the papers call him pretty no matter how much he hated it. She whimpered and glazed over like the glory of a god touched her. "Go on home, darlin. Take your friends with you. I'll play here again in a few months and I'll see you then."

Before those girls could hold him up anymore, Bobby ushered him through the clump of perfume and frosted lipstick directly into the waiting car. They waved him off as if completely oblivious to the rioting tearing apart the University of Mississippi not far from the club.

"Never seen anything like it," Bobby grumbled next to him as the driver steered them northwest toward Memphis.

Dean stared out of the window. He thought he saw the orange haze of a fire in the distance but he couldn't be sure. "Hope those girls get home okay," he murmured. His thoughts shifted to the bigger concern in his life. "Did you get my brother out of here?"

"Yep. First car out with Jerry," he replied.

"Should've put him with Ronnie. Shit. Aw hell. I guess it'll be fine. Jerry wasn't too drunk yet, was he?"

"Sober as a church maid."

Dean nodded. As long as Sam got back to Memphis without too much trouble, Jess would be there to watch over him. He was trying to dry out again but nobody else in the band seemed to think that was important. They weren't the ones who watched Sam get his stomach pumped two years before when he tried to swallow a bottle of pills and check out early. Watching their mother die as a child messed him up and it became Dean's job to patch him back up every time things descended into chaos. At least he had Jess now and he confided that he wanted to get himself together for her. He finally saw something better than drugs.

"I need some time off," Dean decided aloud.

"Now?" It astonished Bobby, who furrowed his brows over at him.

"I can't play shows while this state is falling apart. Music doesn't matter." He jerked his chin at the window. "That guy might get killed just because he's black and he wants to go to school. I'm not gonna play until they stop rioting over there."

"You're protesting."

"Yeah." He hasn't thought of it that way yet but it made sense and it felt right. "I'm not playing until the rioting stops. And you make sure the papers know it."

"Oh Lord," grumbled Bobby with an incredulous grin. "Here we go."


	2. Chapter 2

Halloween 1962

"I'll get you, my pretty! And your little cat too!" Thirteen-year-old Hannah Novak slid into the kitchen brandishing a broom, a black dress, and a pointy black hat. She grinned and spread her hands. "What do you think? Tessa finished it last night."

"Bewitching, little sister," said Gabriel, leaning against the counter with a cup of coffee.

Castiel appraised his little sister from where he sat at the breakfast table. He made a show of considering her Halloween costume. The family cat, however, couldn't be bothered to lift her fluffy white head from Castiel's lap even for a witch in the kitchen. He stroked Jacqueline's neck.

"Wicked Witch of the West, hm?"

"Midwest," Hannah replied with a haughty jerk of the chin.

A subtle smile crinkled around Castiel's eyes. "You need your ruby red slippers."

"I don't have red shoes." She shrugged impassively.

"Mom did though," offered Castiel.

Each of the Novak siblings had been privately mourning their parents for the past month, hardly speaking of them at all, and the verbal reminder of her mother's life struck Hannah silent. She tipped her face with the weight of unspoken questions. Off to the side, Gabriel smiled nostalgically into his coffee cup. He'd taken his parents' deaths the easiest, at least on the surface, and remained steadfast on both his medical degree and chasing every nurse deemed cute enough. Little Hannah, however, had been the worry of the house. Castiel, Gabriel, and Tessa each took to spoiling her and doing their utmost to protect her innocence from the outside world.

"I thought Mom's shoes should be yours," Castiel told her when she didn't respond.

Her brows lifted and her eyes brightened. "Really? Not Tessa?"

"Tessa chose a few other things. We'll go through their room when you're ready, but for now, I left the red shoes for you by the coat rack in the hall." He shrugged, lifting a hand away from the cat sprawled across his legs. "If you want them, I mean."

Grinning broadly, Hannah's gangly body bolted from the kitchen. "I want 'em!" she called over her shoulder.

"Hey! Gabe's coming home for dinner and then he'll take you and your friends trick-or-treating!" Castiel called after her. "Be nice to him! I want to see your homework on this table when I get home tonight!"

"Okay, okay! Gotta go! Thanks, Cas!" The front door slammed and Hannah was on her way to school.

"You sound like Dad already," commented Gabriel.

Castiel sniffed indignantly. "Not that bad, I hope."

"Well--" Gabriel shrugged, "--at least you're not taking a belt to Hannah like him."

The silence of a childless house descended, leaving the redundant tick, tock, tick, tock of the grandfather clock in the front hall. Through the kitchen doorway into the formal dining room, Castiel caught sight of his grandparents staring down at him. They'd been immortalized in oil paint on their honeymoon trip somewhere around the outbreak of the First World War. Grandfather Novak always looked terrifyingly like his son, Castiel's father, while the smallness and naivete of his grandmother reminded him of what Hannah would look like once she grew into herself.

Tessa's perfectly sculpted haircut resembled Jackie Kennedy more that day as she cut across the paintings into the dining room. She grabbed her school books off the dining table, catching Castiel's eye. He'd caught her in an unguarded moment and read the stress in the delicate folded skin between her eyes. Tessa--she was the most sensitive of the Novak family but nobody guessed at it by the hard shell masking her heart.

"Bye!" she yelled as if she hadn't seen Castiel at all.

When the front door slammed again, Gabriel cleared his throat and dumped the last remaining mouthfuls of coffee in the sink. "Hannah know you're leaving town yet?"

"No," Castiel replied. "Nothing's final yet. I've got a meeting this morning. Telling her before it's set in stone when she's this ... I don't know ... delicate, I guess, seems pointless. I don't want to contribute to her discomfort." He knew he sounded clinical about it but that was the only way he could talk about his little sister's broken heart without being buried alive under the weight of his own guilt.

"Do me a favor, huh?"

Castiel glanced over at his brother. "What?"

"Tell me first. If you're gonna put me on babysitter duty on top of my clinical shifts, I oughta be prepared for the tears and whatnot. I'll get the kid candy or something. Candy works for me."

They agreed, though Castiel sensed some resentment in him. There was nothing to be done about it and he saw no point in dragging out a discussion about their feelings like a couple of women. Too many feelings ran free in the Novak house those days anyway. It was all he could do to hold everything together with no money, waiting on an inheritance to come through the courts, a little sister who veered from emotion to emotion without warning, and a middle sister who was probably days away from an unexpected pregnancy. Tessa worried him more than any of them. She buried herself in making a boyfriend happy who deserved none of it, Castiel guessed, to distract herself from the grief she refused to touch.

Money, though. Money was the real problem. Castiel was nowhere near ready to support a family at that stage of his life, being only twenty-four, but nobody asked him what he wanted. On the drive to the office that morning, he fantasized about tossing a suitcase in the back of his car and caravaning all over America. He'd write stories about everyday people trying to change the world and he'd work his way from newspaper to newspaper. Mom and Dad would still be at home to make Hannah's Halloween costumes and keep Tessa out of her boyfriend's backseat. Gabriel wouldn't have to divert attention from medical school to domestic worries and Castiel wouldn't feel so damn guilty for leaving all of them at home to take a job out of state because it paid more than anything he could get in Chicago. It had been his lifelong home but he was starting to loathe that skyline.

The elevator swept Castiel up to the sixteenth floor of the Chicago offices for Life magazine. He straightened the blue tie choking him around the neck and made sure his tan overcoat draped properly. It wouldn't matter how he looked to the editor and he knew it but he felt better when things were in order.

"Aha, Castiel Novak. Good to meet you, son," greeted the editor through a cloud of cigarette smoke as they shook hands.

Son. Castiel hated the patronizing man already. Even so, he offered a tight smile of what little respect he could muster. He needed the money. Whatever that man told him to write, he'd make it sound like Shakespeare. Life magazine was the big time, after all. If he did well, his family wouldn't suffer with canned food in that great big house anymore. He felt his father's spirit behind him, pushing him to do well. Take care of the kids, Cas. They need you.

*****

Memphis in late autumn still had a sultry quality to the air, like Dean could wring out a washcloth in the air and squeeze out the Mississippi River. It wasn't hot. No, not hot, but the air always felt like it wanted to drown people walking down the street.

Kids trotting down the street dressed like ghosts, ghouls, vampires, and werewolves drew his eye through the enormous cafe window. He drained a mouthful of beer from a brown glass bottle, picturing where those kids were going and how much fun they were having trick-or-treating. Yet the one thing he noticed that he hadn't in years past was how strikingly white those trick-or-treaters were, not even thinking about the black children populating Memphis around them.

Dusk fell over the street. Bars and clubs up and down the riverfront slowly came to life and prepared to welcome musicians of every variety, all while Dean took entirely too long to smoke his cigarette. He liked taking a good smoke slow, feeling the paper cylinder rest between his lips like a kiss. A good, slow cigarette was like good, slow sex if it was done right.

"Is it true you haven't played a live show since the second of October?"

Dean righted himself, remembering the pretty reporter across the table. "That's right."

She nodded and scribbled on her pad. "Sun Studios claims you refuse to play out of some sort of protest regarding America's continued policies of racial inequality."

"It's pretty well-documented by now, Miss Richardson," replied Dean with a wry smile and another swallow of beer. "What are you fishing for?"

"A direct man. I like that." Miss Richardson looked as hungry for a story as she was hungry for him, it seemed. She folded her arms over the table, oblivious to the cafe noise around them, and focused her gaze. "Tell me, do you really think a musician not making any music is going to make a difference with race relations in this country?"

"No, it won't make a damn bit of difference directly," he replied as he flicked cigarette ashes into the pewter dish in the middle of the table. "People are talking though. A white man like me putting his career on hold is creative suicide to some people, I guess, but I think it's different. Look, man, it's easy to ignore shit when you can't relate to it and most of the white folks in this country don't have a clue. It takes someone like me to get their fur up. I'm one of them. If they see me out there yelling about how this is all fucked up--excuse me--then they'll sit up and pay more attention."

"So you think more Southern whites should take up the Negro cause?"

"Absolutely." Dean nodded sharply. "It's not just a racial cause though. It's humanity. It's the right to live with free will given to all of us."

The reporter hastily made notes of what he said.

Toward the back of the cafe, a series of loud thumps caught Dean's attention and, looking over, he quietly observed a beatnik act setting up to play. Every bar, cafe, and restaurant in Memphis overflowed with singers and bands wanting to play each night since Elvis hit it big there. Dean had been one of them before his band got big enough to tour the country opening for other acts at Sun Studios. He watched a guy with shaggy hair sit on a stool near the amps, carefully tuning his guitar. That used to be Dean too. He still recorded with his band to keep them paid but he made it clear they weren't releasing anything new until the new year brought 1963. Reluctantly, they agreed. Dean was the creative force, the voice, the songwriter, and they couldn't very well go on without him and hope to make it big.

"Is it true you've been participating in sit-in protests?"

"Yep," Dean admitted proudly.

Incredulous, Miss Richardson nearly scowled but caught herself before she let the mask of her journalistic neutrality slip. "Don't people throw food and scream horrible things at you?"

"Yep," Dean said again. "I haven't been allowed to go to more than two so far and the worst that happened to me, sitting at the luncheonette counter, was getting a vat of cold gravy dumped over my head. That's nothing." He shrugged. "I wash up easy."

"Oh, interesting. What do you mean you haven't been allowed? Is there organization to these protests?"

"We go through training. It's pacifist protests, you know. Like, you're not going to see my groups out there fighting the police or rioting in the streets because we've been through a lot to make sure that--number one--we won't lose our composure and respond with violence--and number two--we can tolerate the abuse thrown at us." Suddenly in his element, Dean plucked another cigarette from the pack and sparked the tip with a match. "See, Miss Richardson, I've got it worse because I'm white and they see me as betraying my own kind. They're twice as violent toward me. I can take it though. I wasn't sure at first--" Pausing, he took a drag off his smoke. "--But after my first sit-in, I sorta mellowed out into peace, man. I know what I'm doing."

"But what do you care?"

Dean laughed deep in his chest and gave her a thin smile. He leaned forward over the table. "Miss Richardson, you're a woman. You should know a thing or two about what oppression feels like. You're not that far removed from your mother being told it was her patriotic duty to go work in some factory in the Second World War, and then told it was her patriotic duty to go back to the kitchen when her man came home. Things aren't too different now. Tell me--does your editor slap you on the ass and call you sweetheart?"

The woman blanched and then her ears turned red. Hitting too close to home by turning oppression on her brought out a white hot flash of anger. Good, Dean thought. More people needed to be angry.

"Just what the hell do you know about oppression anyway?" she spat. "You're a white middle-class man. This world's tailor made for arrogant dicks like you."

Dean's thin smile never faltered as he watched the hungry young reporter jam her notebook in her back and stalk out of the cafe. At least his reputation for eating journalists alive remained in tact. True, she'd hate him and spit venom about him at parties like the others, but she'd print the truth too. Dean was fine with having an arrogant reputation because he knew it wasn't the case at all. People slapped the arrogant label on each other when they couldn't stomach the way they viewed the world clearly and without rosy glasses.

And anyway, Dean thought as he rubbed out the butt of his cigarette, the reporter couldn't see what made him an object of scorn. It lived inside of him far removed from the black skin of men and women he publicly defended. Miss Richardson could fall in love in the open, hold the poor sap's hand on the street, and marry him in a big white wedding, while Dean ... well ... Dean had to console himself with loving in dark, hidden places and not thinking about marriage at all. It was illegal for two men to love.

Oppression? Yes. Dean Winchester knew a few things about it.

*****

November 5, 1962

If his hands would quit sweating, that'd be great. Castiel's grip on a gin and tonic nearly cracked the glass and his spine went rigid against the back of the seat. Flight 820 trembled and groaned with the effort as it glided toward the runway, not that he could make himself watch it through the little window on his right. He swallowed hard, sandpaper scraping deep in his throat, and he fought back images of his parents dying in another airplane just five weeks ago. Who was to say that plane was any safer? How did they know it wouldn't hit the ground and explode into a fireball? Screw the job. Castiel just wanted to survive the flight. He spiraled in silence.

Finally, a rolling thump signalled the wheels touched the runway and as the sensation of earth rumbled up through Castiel's legs, he breathed. In the next moment, he decided to cash in his return flight for a good, sturdy train ticket home in two weeks. Trains had to be safer, he reasoned.

Life magazine sent him to Memphis, Tennessee, to get as many interviews as he could from people living through the movement for racial equality. They weren't sure if it was a meaningful story or a fleeting uprising but Castiel knew better. He knew they thought they were giving him a junk job stuffed in the back of the magazine between ads for cold cream and the upcoming '63 Chevys, but he knew better. The truth was Castiel knew in his bones the magazine giving him a junk job actually put him at the forefront of something huge. Something that would shake the world at its core. Maybe even a book. God, a book would be great. A meaningful legacy to say Castiel Novak was there at a critical moment of enlightenment in the world's dark history.

Thick humidity assaulted Castiel when he collected his luggage and stepped out onto Memphis streets for the first time. He couldn't fathom how it was both cold and uncomfortably sticky outside at the same time. If Memphis was like that, he hated to find out how it felt deeper in the South, like Birmingham or Atlanta.

Still, he had work to do. Sleek tortoiseshell framed sunglasses rested on his nose as he waved down an airport taxi to take him to the hotel. At least the magazine gave him living expenses for the assignment. That made it easier to make sure his weekly pay got sent home to his sisters and brother, who all protested his departure up until the eleventh hour. They just didn't think they could keep the house together without him and part of Castiel doubted it too. He expected Gabriel to serve up cake for dinner, cookies for breakfast, and let Tessa go to school in horrible tiny skirts. He expected to come home to a house in a disaster zone with every animal wandering free that Hannah had been campaigning for since she was five. Gabriel tested at genius levels in high school but he wasn't adept at making practical life choices or knowing when to say no to their younger sisters.

The hotel certainly wasn't the Waldorf, he realized when the taxi dropped him off in the heart of the city. It looked clean and safe enough but the brick building standing six stories above the street looked like it had been built around the Civil War. There were no balconies or smartly dressed bellhops, but the front desk did give him a room overlooking the Mississippi River. He decided to make the best of it. He had a fluffy bed, a desk, a clean bathroom, and a bar downstairs on the ground floor neighboring the hotel. It looked like what the antique hotel lacked in modern decor, they made up for it with good quality furnishings. It was home for the next two weeks.

Leaving the suit behind, Castiel felt more comfortable blending in with the casual atmosphere of the city. He changed into tan dress pants and a white buttondown shirt left open to the collarbones with his sleeves rolled to the elbows.

Castiel stuck his hands in his pockets and quietly observed people milling around the hotel lobby as he made his way out to the street again. The sun was setting and his stomach rumbled but he couldn't muster the energy to walk over to one of the nicer restaurants after the flight, so he took the easy route to the bar next door instead. If they had anything remotely edible, he'd cram it into his mouth and head back upstairs for a long night of needed sleep.

"Benny! Get your hind end out back, boy! Beer delivery!"

"Yes'm!"

And that was Castiel's introduction to the fair Southern belle. She nearly walked right into him, blonde and wearing jeans like a beatnik, except she seemed old enough to be his mother.

"'Scuse me, darlin'," she said to Castiel, nearly knocking him over with a wide crate of empty glasses hoisted over her head.

"Pardon me," Castiel replied awkwardly.

The woman paused and gave him the once over. "Well, would you look at that? Got ourselves a Yankee in here tonight."

Hot redness crept up the back of Castiel's neck, which he rubbed. "Yeah, I guess."

"You're a sweet thing." A faint smile accentuated her appraisal of the foreigner. "Well, welcome to Harvelle's, sweet thing. Go on, get yourself a stool up at the bar. Somebody'll be by to serve you in a minute."

"Thanks."

Castiel tried not to stare at her and study her the way she did him, instead choosing to get lost in the crowd toward the bar. He felt bizarrely conservative there among people smoking, drinking, and wearing clothes his parents thought belonged to the lower rung of society. He definitely felt overdressed, even without a tie and jacket.

As he scanned the bar, he noticed off in the back corner women in tight dresses with cone-shaped bras dancing with men in bright colored shirts. The music rumbled through speakers mounted on the walls and flanking a lit up jukebox--black music punctuated by grinding rhythms that made people dance as if tiptoeing toward indecent. Still, Castiel didn't watch the dancing couples disdainfully. He knew enough about the differences in people to realize their varying interests didn't make them wrong. He just--good Lord, she hiked her leg over her dancing partner's hip--he just hadn't had much exposure beyond his parents' country club set.

Dropping into an empty barstool put Castiel's back to the dancing corner but the music still thrummed through the air and swirled high over laughing, chatting voices, and clinking glasses. Another couple sat on his right, though he might as well have been invisible for how much they noticed him. To see anything, they'd have to stop kissing, murmuring, and open their eyes.

Over a few stools to Castiel's left, a handful of men apparently his age gathered in animated conversation with one guy sitting up on the bar twirling drumsticks in his fingers. Lingering on the edges of the group stood an enormously tall man with hair grown long around his shoulders and an indiscernible hollow quality to his eyes, though he laughed with the rest of them. A tiny yet formidable curly-haired blonde girl had her willowy arms looped around his waist, claiming her territory before a number of women scattered throughout the bar silently coveting her man. But then, as Castiel looked closer, he realized the bar's women weren't coveting the tall one but in fact a similar looking man seated just two stools down from him. He didn't talk much, nor did he have long shaggy hair, but even studying his broad shoulders from behind suggested he carried the weight of the world, like Castiel. The man's face turned toward the bar for a long drink from his bottle and it gave Castiel a moment to study freckles and full lips along with green eyes darkened by distraction.

Castiel averted his gaze when he realized he'd been studying the pattern of the silent man's stubble. He rubbed the back of his neck again, arms folded on the bar, and cleared his throat. Only his mother had known about his inclinations and her solution had been to push him into a young marriage, hoping to correct the problem with a pretty, willing wife. She'd died before she could push a girl on him. Sometimes though, Castiel wondered if hurrying up and getting married really would fix him. Willpower hadn't worked. A string of anonymous encounters in dark, back alley clubs had been leaving him unfulfilled and guilty since he was Tessa's age, yet he kept doing it to relieve the pressure.

"What can I git ya?"

The gruff voice rolled in a deep drawl startled Castiel, who straightened and covered over his thoughts with magazine business as if the bartender would hear them. "Um...." Castiel replied. "Let me have a gin and tonic, please."

"You got it." The bartender wiped his hands on a towel, tossed it over his shoulder, and set to work on the drink. "Don't get too many folks from up north in this place. They usually like the more uptight spots."

"My hotel's just next door."

"That so?" A sharp blue eye peered at Castiel over the man's meaty shoulder.

Castiel nodded. "I'm from Chicago. Life magazine, actually."

"Huh. Thought they'd put up their folks in nicer hotels. Go figure." He slid a glass on a napkin over to Castiel with a nod.

"Thanks. Yeah, I thought so too, but I only just started and I don't get the pick of the litter with assignments. I'm just happy to be writing and getting a steady paycheck."

"I hear that, brother. Benny Lafitte." He stuck out his hand.

Nodding politely, Castiel gave him a sturdy handshake. "Castiel Novak."

The bartender called Benny let out a long whistle as he washed up used glasses and passed a new beer bottle to the man with freckles as if they knew each other. "Well, you just come on into Harvelle's when you need hot grub and a drink, Novak. We'll treat you better than those snobby clubs uptown."

"Hey, I play at some of those snobby clubs uptown."

It was the first time the man with freckles spoke and although his back was still turned to Castiel, his profile caught the light as he gave a joking glare to Benny Lafitte. Then he smiled. Small and rather distracted, yes, but he smiled nonetheless, striking Castiel somewhere low in his belly.

No, no, no, no. It was the worst possible time for his peculiar inclinations to rise.

"Forgive me, oh great rockstar." Benny made a show of twirling his towel and bowing.

"Say, Mr. Lafitte," interjected Castiel if only to hasten his escape, "have you got anything to eat here?"

"How's a cheeseburger and fries strike you, Yankee?"

"Great."

Was everyone in Memphis going to call him a Yankee even if they knew his name? It probably didn't help that his name sounded Russian. He sighed and swallowed half his gin in one shot. Then the green-eyed rockstar tipped his head back with boisterous laughter and Castiel polished off the rest of his drink. Leaving home was an idea he started to doubt the longer he sat in Harvelle's below a hotel reserved for him in an afterthought. It was true. The Novaks were an afterthought, already forgotten as the sensation of the plane crash faded into newspapers lining trash bins.


	3. Chapter 3

The striking difference between Harvelle's by day and Harvelle's by night astounded Castiel as he strolled through the glass doors and slipped his sunglasses in his pocket. It could very well have been a completely different establishment there in the quiet breakfast hour. Clean round tables replaced much of what was the rowdy dance floor the night before and tiny flower vases adorned the tables along the windows.

People laughed and chatted in respectable clothes while they enjoyed flapjacks, biscuits and gravy, eggs, bacon, sausage, coffee, and Coca-Cola. Castiel had learned that fact the night before. Everybody drank Coca-Cola in the South at every hour of the day. It wasn't an occasional treat that it was back home in Chicago with his brother and sisters.

"Mornin', darlin'," greeted a young woman carrying an armful of menus with long blonde hair and a sweet smile. "Table or bar?"

"Bar, I think. Thank you."

With a self-assured nod, the young lady led the way around people having breakfast at round tables. She glanced back at him a few times before saying, "Are you the Yankee who was here last night too? Benny said we had an out of towner but this place gets so crazy at night that my momma won't let me work the bar. Sure, it's safe enough for my boyfriend but not me."

That surprised Castiel. "Your boyfriend's the bartender?"

"Aha! I guess you are the Yankee then!" She flashed a smile and extended a hand to a barstool. "Here you go, darlin'. Have a menu. Lemme tell ya, steer clear of the sausage today because Ash is cookin' and he burns pig like nobody's business."

"Thanks for the warning," chuckled Castiel as he scanned the limited breakfast offerings on a single menu card printed front and back. He liked her though. She was a lot like what he expected Hannah to grow into around--he eyeballed her--maybe 21-years-old. "If you don't mind me asking--"

"--My momma owns the joint, darlin'. I don't mind it that my man's got a little bit of gray in his beard. I'm of age and I've seen plenty in the world. The name's Jo Harvelle. Can I bring you coffee?" Sassy little Jo flashed another smile and Castiel wondered if he offended her. Maybe, he considered, Southern people were used to having their noses in each other's business.

"Yes, please. Sweeten it up, if you don't mind."

Everything Castiel said seemed to amuse Jo Harvelle as evident by her twinkling eyes and half-smile. "You got it, precious."

"Could I get flapjacks and bacon, please?"

"Sure thing." Taking the menu back, she added, "I grew up hearin' all about rude Yankees but you sure are polite. I'll be back in a jiffy with your coffee."

It seemed more and more like a foreign country to Castiel, sitting with his arms folded over the bar in a casual pose. They had their own language and cultural ideas that, he guessed, his parents' country club set would find quaint. So far, Castiel didn't find them quaint at all, but rather, heartfelt with their emotions worn in the open for all to see. There was a particular vulnerability to Southern people--women, in particular--that he had never encountered up north or even out west. No wonder antiquated ideology about men being the leaders and women being the housewives was still so deeply entrenched in their society. Judging by the four churches he spied through Harvelle's bright windows, Southern society was based in religion, a strong patriarchy, and--he looked around suddenly--hardly any colored people anywhere.

Notes formulated in Castiel's mind and he grabbed a fresh pad from his leather satchel. He jotted down his initial impressions. To understand the deeply entrenched attitudes on race, he wrote, one had to understand the way Southern people behaved. Outsiders were subject to scrutiny and, at times, blatant suspicion. The more he behaved like the picture of a Southern man, the more they welcomed him into the Memphis fold. So far, though, he had only penetrated Harvelle's, but it showed him a lot without much probing about the state of things there. Every face enjoying breakfast that morning was white. Where were the colored people?

"I took you for a student, y'know. Looks like I was right." Jo appeared again, carrying a cup of coffee that looked awfully pale, just the way he liked it, loaded down with cream and sugar.

"Oh," he replied, smiling, "I'm not a student. I'm a journalist."

"That so?" Brows arched, Jo let out an impressed stretch of a whistle. "Whatcha writin' about?"

Castiel considered not telling her just yet or making up some false story, but he reconsidered, thinking maybe she had some leads he could follow. "Well, I'm actually doing a story on raciel tension and protests happening down here in light of the colored student being admitted to the white school."

"Oh yeah, down at Ole Miss," replied Jo. Her face twisted. "You sure it's a good idea poking around the hornet's nest like that?"

"A journalist who doesn't examine difficult questions isn't worth his weight in salt if you ask me," Castiel countered kindly. "I believe our world is on the brink of magnificent change and I need to be in the middle of it. One day, people will be separated into who helped the changes come about and who stood by doing nothing, watching it all go by."

Clearly interested but not sure what to make of him, Jo leaned on her elbows on the bar opposite Castiel while he drank coffee. "Aren't journalists supposed to be neutral on what they write?"

"Yes, quite," he agreed. "I'm writing about both sides of the issue."

"How very black and white of you."

Castiel's mouth twitched into a wry smile, putting down his coffee mug and taking up his pen. "Would you like to be my first interview for this assignment?"

"Lord no! My momma would skin my hide if I brought politics into her place." A shadow passed over her bright, young eyes as she straightened and busied herself with clearing dirty dishes off the nearby tables. "It's not like I dig segregation or anything. Cut open a colored guy and he bleeds just the same as a white guy."

"So why are you afraid of speaking up in defense of changing the laws?"

Jo's concerned eyes flashed over at him but then she bent over a table and wiped swift circles on its surface with a soft white rag. "Well see, they're punishin' white folks who support the colored folks."

"How so?"

She shrugged. "Bricks thrown through windows, setting fires, that kind of thing. I know one of my momma's uptown friends got tossed outta the Junior League without so much as a buh-bye see ya later because she refused to disown her nephew, who's been joinin' the activists at sit-ins and stuff. Then a few weeks ago, the Klan torched a cross right in the middle of her vegetable garden. Since her nephew drinks here all the time, my momma's not too keen on causing more trouble for our place." Again, she shrugged. "The Klan's part of the reason why I'm not allowed to work here after dark 'til things change. I don't guess anything's ever gonna change 'round here though."

The pen flew across Castiel's notepad as he scribbled notes on what she described. "Don't worry, I'm not using your name."

Even so, Jo eyed the notepad apprehensively. "Okay...."

"You'd say the Ku Klux Klan is the main agitator among Southern whites, then?"

"Well, they're just the organized ones. A lot of white folks protect and support them because they have the same poisonous ideas."

As long as young Jo Harvelle answered his questions despite saying she wouldn't talk, Castiel intended to keep pressing her. The key, he decided, was to keep it conversational. "I can't believe they're destroying public property and private homes. That's just so insane to me. Why aren't they arrested for that stuff?"

Jo blinked dumbly at him for a moment. Then bubbles of laughter surfaced. "Oh man, don't you know? Most of the cops from Kentucky to Florida are Klan."

"Oh, right. Yeah...." His brows lifted, realizing he probably should have guessed it. Thoughts curling around the many objectives he'd set for himself made him foresee a dozen different paths he could have taken in that moment. He considered the path of least resistance. If Jo didn't feel right about talking on the record, maybe the woman who got attacked by the Klan would. "I wondered, Miss Harvelle, if you could be pursuaded to give me the name of this woman you mentioned? The uptown woman?"

"Everybody knows about it. Just don't mention me in anything. Can't risk the Klan doing somethin' here." Reverence lifted the fearful cloud over Jo's eyes as she paused and looked around the bar. "My dad built this place when he came back from fightin' the Nazis." Her voice trailed off mournfully but Castiel put the puzzle pieces together in that moment. Ellen Harvelle was so protective over her daughter and the bar because Mr. Harvelle, whoever he was, had clearly been dead for a while. Jo roused herself suddenly and looked Castiel in the eye. "You want Elizabeth Campbell."

*****

Jefferson Avenue in Memphis resembled a little bit of old Chicago in the way time stood still and brick townhouses lined the streets. They were smaller and, by proportion, older than back home but something about Elizabeth Campbell's three-story brick townhouse reminded him of the Novak house. It was elegant, yet lived-in and not overly adorned. He liked the lady without even setting eyes on her.

Castiel trotted up a set of concrete steps leading to the house from the sidewalk, passing a charred circle in the ground to his left. That was where Jo Harvelle had been wrong. He spotted a splintered foot of wood jutting up from the burnt remains of grass and flowers. The Klan hadn't set up the flaming cross in the back where her vegetable garden was likely planted. They stuck it in the front yard for the entire street to see, making the point for all to see. Here was a white woman who dared to betray her own kind by daring to defend a black student. They meant to mark her as a tarnished woman like Hester in The Scarlet Letter.

Journalistic neutrality momentarily gave way to personal outrage as Castiel knocked on Mrs. Campbell's door. He cleared his throat and straightened his white shirt, clinging just slightly in the humid afternoon air.

A man answered the door, startling Castiel as he had expected an older woman. Unusually tall and strong, the man's shaggy dark hair reaching his shoulders seemed strikingly familiar. Castiel racked his brain until it hit him with sudden clarity that he'd just seen that very man the night before at the bar. Southern cities really were full of people who bumped into each other all the time.

The man lifted a brow and then scowled a bit. Castiel realized he hadn't spoken but merely stared like a buffoon.

"Hi."

"What's up?" greeted the man skeptically.

"I'm sorry--do you--I'm looking for Elizabeth Campbell. I think I might have the wrong house though."

"No, you've got the right place. Liz lives here. I'm Sam Winchester, her nephew." He unconsciously pushed his hair behind his ear, and even though it looked like he hadn't brushed it, it still looked smooth and in place. "She's having a nap right now. What can I do for you?"

"I see. I was hoping to speak to Ms. Campbell. I'm Castiel Novak and I'm a reporter for Life magazine, doing a story on the racial tensions in Memphis."

Sam Winchester's face momentarily hardened.

Quickly, Castiel dropped a local name. "See, Jo Harvelle told me what happened here--" He gestured to the scorched earth behind him, "--and I thought it was an important opportunity for Ms. Campbell to tell her side of the story."

"Mrs. Campbell," corrected Sam. "Widowed twelve years."

"Mrs. Campbell. Forgive me."

"Right." The man still eyed Castiel with the skeptical narrowed gaze inherent to all Southern men despite not having the telltale Memphis accent at all. "You sure it's my aunt you wanna talk to and you're not after my brother?"

"Sorry, what?" Thrown off, Castiel leaned forward a fraction as if it might help him hear better and he looked at Sam with a questioning tilt of his head.

"My brother," Sam repeated. "Dean Winchester."

"I don't know who that is, Mr. Winchester."

That seemed to amuse Sam and a dimple appeared behind his half-smile. "Guitar player. Singer. Sun Studios."

Castiel still had no idea who Sam was talking about and he gave a light shrug. He suspected the man being described was the one sitting a few stools away the night before at the bar with the wonderful mouth and the thoughtful green eyes. Come to think of it, Sam had rather similar eyes but more hazel and complicated than green and thoughtful.

"You really don't know who he is?" Sam asked, perplexed.

"Sorry, no."

"Okay, cool. C'mon in. I'll go up and see if Aunt Liz wants to talk to a reporter from...."

"Life magazine."

"Life. Right."

Following Sam into the foyer, Castiel instantly felt sucked back into time but the exact period struck him as muddled. Much of the decor looked high Victorian like his own neighborhood in Chicago, but there were Edwardian, Art Deco, and newer elements in there as well. As Sam led him through a double archway into the living room, Castiel decided the house must have belonged to the family for at least three generations.

"Make yourself comfortable. I'll be right back," Sam said.

"Thank you," replied Castiel with a polite nod.

Left alone in the eclectic old living room, he didn't sit down at first but instead drifted to the nearest window facing the street. That window overlooked the blackened scar in the earth where the Klan burned a cross in the yard.

It struck him as quite the moving image, making him slide his satchel off his shoulder and retrieve the camera from its contents. He took a few shots through the window as if allowing the viewer to have the same perspective as the woman who endured racial injustice. If he was going to sway his readers, he needed to make them feel like that kind of injustice could happen in their own yards. He needed to make them feel present at his side. Mrs. Campbell could be anyone.

Footsteps drew his attention just as he stuffed the camera back into the leather satchel. He glanced over his shoulder, finding a rather lovely if not middle-aged woman with blond hair curling past her shoulders. She had to be older than she looked, he decided when she offered a faint smile. Certainly she seemed entirely too young to be widowed for so long.

"I see you found my barbecued front yard," she said in a monotone voice that suggested hiding boiling emotion about it. A quick faint smile and an extended hand brought her closer to shake his. "Hello, young man. My nephew told me you're from Life magazine? He didn't think I ought to talk to you and bring more attention on our family but I feel I must stand behind my other nephew in his selfless work. Have you met my other nephew?"

"No ma'am. I haven't had the pleasure," he replied, shaking her hand. "My name's Castiel Novak. I heard about what happened from Jo Harvelle but she wasn't too keen on me saying so. If we could keep that to ourselves--"

"--I understand, Mr. Novak. Our family has patronized their establishment for years. They're good friends of ours. Not to worry." Elizabeth Campbell offered him a more sincere smile that time as she backed away and motioned for them to sit together on the sofa. "What would you like to know?"

Castiel unfold it has leather notepad and popped open the lid to his pen. That was the moment where he began to shine. His training as a journalist always brought him to a place of comfort even in the most difficult of interviews. Mrs. Campbell seemed willing to talk about the evil done to her, although not as willing in the eyes as he'd hoped. She was nervous. He expected she thought it could happen again, or something worse, but she soldiered through that anxiety for the greater good. She was brave. Castiel amended the questions formulating in his mind as he read her expression in that short moment.

"First, I want to tell you how grateful I am that you've agreed to sit down and have this conversation today," he said genially. "You're my first interview on this assignment and I think this will set the tone for my article."

He didn't mean to sound like he flattered her but she smiled and shifted on the couch just slightly as if he had flustered her. "Oh, well, I don't know how much I'll be able to help you but I'll certainly do my best. Honestly, I never considered myself any kind of activist or protester but I am a woman who will support my nephews in everything they do. Their parents died a long time ago, you see. My sister was their mother. Mary wouldn't let me leave them to fend for themselves in this uproar if she was still here." Pain briefly appeared around her eyes as she smiled and they crinkled.

"I see," he said as he jotted down a few notes about the family history. "I'm so sorry for your loss." The words sounded hollow in his ears, an echo of the dozens of people who had said the same thing to him all to recently.

"Thank you," she said sincerely.

"Could you walk me through the events of this cross burning in your yard? Describe for me what happened. What you saw. What you experienced. That sort of thing."

Taking a deep breath, Mrs. Campbell focused on the middle distance between them, looking at nothing in particular, and took herself back to that horror. "Well, I had just gotten ready for bed. This was, oh, I'd say ten days ago? And can you believe my yard is still in such a state? Anyhow, I had just gotten ready for bed and I heard glass shatter downstairs. Both my nephews were gone, so I took Sam's old baseball bat and I started coming downstairs. I saw a broken window right there." Her elegant hand lifted and pointed to the window where Castiel has just shot pictures. "Dean put new glass in the window since then, of course, and he repaired the broken frame."

"He did a good job. I had no idea the window was broken," he replied, make a note of it. "Were they trying to break into the house?"

"No, they threw a brick through my window with a note attached to it." Her mouth hardened into a white line void of all color and blood pumping through her lips. "It was a vile thing, that note. They called us ... well, they called us lovers of colored people, except they used the filthy, demeaning word. I'll have you know, I banned that word in my house the first day my nephews came to live here when they were just little boys. My feelings have always been known in this neighborhood but it hasn't been until now that I've begun to pay for them."

"Yes, I see." Notting again, Castiel made quick business of writing down the main points of what she said. "And after they through the brick through your window, what happened?"

"Let's see." She sighed heavily as she recalled the events. "Well, they saw me through the window here. I was standing in the doorway over there and they started yelling awful things at me, which of course I heard everything because the window was shattered. It was dark but I still saw the cross planted in my yard like a tree. It was big. I would say at least ten feet or so."

It sounded so barbarous to Castiel but he kept his emotions well-guarded. "And how many were there?"

"Four or five. I couldn't tell exactly. It was rather dark."

"And one of your neighbors came out to help you? No one called the police? This isn't exactly a remote location. You're in the middle of downtown Memphis. How is it that no one came to your aid?"

A patient smile brought a little color back to Mrs. Campbell's face. She looked over at him knowingly. "You're not from anywhere around here, are you?"

"No ma'am," he replied. "I'm from Chicago."

"Ah yes, then you wouldn't understand how things are done here. People don't get mixed up in Klan business. There either afraid of retaliation or they agree with what those cowards in the bedsheets are doing. Let's just be blunt about it, Mr. Novak. My neighbors are either afraid or they think I deserve what I got."

He shook his head and then stopped himself. "I'm hearing that over at Harvelle's too."

"Yeah, that's why Ellen doesn't let her Jo go with my Dean to his meetings. Those two grew up together, you know. Best of friends. For a while, I thought maybe they'd get married, but neither of them seem terribly interested in romance, at least with each other. She's got herself a good man now." She allowed herself a wistful sigh and then rounded back to the cross burning story. "That's where Dean was that night, you know. He was at one of his meetings to organize protests in defense of bringing down Jim Crow. If Dean had been here, he surely would've taken his daddy's shotgun and gotten himself in more trouble."

"What exactly are the nature of these meetings? Do you think that's the reason why the KKK has targeted your family?" He already knew the answer but he wanted to hear her say it in her own words.

"Oh, absolutely. That's the reason all right," said Mrs. Campbell most assuredly. "Dean's joined up with colored folks doing sit-ins at diners and places that only cater to the whites. You may have seen similar groups in the news. They sit in white-only places while all sorts of abuses are thrown at them while they never react to it. Their goal is to stand their ground and force the news to report the violence. It's one matter to report riots. Everyone looks villainous in a riot. It's quite another to show peaceful people being attacked where they sit without provocation."

Castiel had seen some footage of people sitting in white only cafes and diners on television. Hey consider the implications and consequences of white man participating in that kind of thing and slowly begin to understand why Mrs. Campbell was attacked.

"Anyway," she continued when he didn't speak, "I shouted at them to stop and go away. I don't really know what I said. I just knew what they were going to do, you know, but of course they did it anyway. One of them had a torch like it was a hundred years ago or something. It was rather surreal looking back on it now. They had this torch like it was the most normal thing in the world to them. So one of them touched the fire to the bottom of the cross and I think it must've been soaked in kerosene or something because the whole thing went up in flames right away. This ten foot flaming cross raged in my yard and those men in their white robes disappeared like ghosts. It was horribly frightening."

Mrs. Campbell's voice trailed off and silence developed between them, letting only the mantle clock measure the quiet seconds. She carefully hug herself as if trying not to let him know about it but he saw her fever. He saw how terrible it must have been alone in the house without her nephews to protect her. The fact that she faced those intruders with only a baseball bat said quite a lot about her personal courage.

Somewhere deep in the interior of the house, a screen door opened and slams shut again, accompanied by heavy boots on a linoleum floor. Mrs. Campbell turned toward the sound and listened for who it might be, straightening on the sofa as if she hadn't just recounted one of the most frightening experiences of her life in Castiel's estimation.

"Hey, Aunt Liz!" shouted a man's voice.

She gave a bright smile to Castiel that showed the depth of her pride and love for her nephews. "Oh, there's Dean now. You can meet him."

Something in Castiel suffered under the brilliance of her smiling joy in those boys of hers. She couldn't look less like his own mother but the blanket of maternal love covered her so thoroughly that they could have been the same person in his eyes. He missed his mother in that moment. The wounds were still so raw, but he only smiled back under the mask of politeness.

"Dean! Come in here, please!" she called back.

Glass bottles rattled as he opened a refrigerator and then came the fizzy pop of a Coca-Cola bottle. Or maybe beer, Castiel thought.

Those heavy boots brought the man who was the center of the storm into the living room so casually as if he hadn't take care in the world. Maybe he was egotistical. Maybe he was so confident in what he was doing that he didn't care what consequences fell on the people around him. Either way, he sauntered into the living room with a brown bottle that, upon closer inspection, turned out to be root beer. Castiel resisted the urge to smile. It was the same man who captivated him the night before, the one so quiet and whose lips drew in his drink in mesmerizing mouthfuls.

"I knocked off early to come and mow the yard before it gets dark," he said to his aunt as he bent to kiss her cheek. "Real music doesn't get made 'til later at night anyway. Workin' on a new song. Think you'll like it."

"Oh good, honey." Mrs. Campbell held onto his hand as he straightened and looked at Castiel for the first time. "I want you to meet Mr. Novak. He's a reporter for Life magazine."

Surprise left the Dean's face. "No kidding? How'd we attract such a big magazine here anyway?" Abruptly, as if forgetting his manners, Dean lunged forward and offered his hand for Castiel to shake. "Dean Winchester. What's your name? Novak? How's it going, hoss?"

"Castiel Novak, yes. Pleasure to meet you. Your aunt speaks very highly of you, Mr. Winchester."

The vague drawl in his syllables nearly made Castiel sway on his feet as he stood and shook the man's hand. Inwardly, he berated himself for giving way to his attraction to part of his story, because he knew Dean had to be interviewed, and he had to be professional about it. Still, he offered Dean a smile that bordered on flirtation whether he meant to or not. He immediately hoped that Dean couldn't see it. The truth was he had to get a lot better at hiding his attraction to men if he meant to make it in the world. So few of them shared that attraction. He thought it just got in the way most of the time.

"Mr. Novak is doing a story on the racial tensions in Memphis, Dean. I believe you want to talk to him," said Mrs. Campbell in her most serious tone.

Dean's green eyes darkened just a bit and slid from his aunt's face over to Castiel's eyes. "That so?" He passed the root beer bottle from one hand to the other and then took a drink as if he didn't know what to do with it. "You gonna write the truth or pander to the cross-burning establishment?"

"Well," replied Castiel, taking the challenge in his voice, "that all depends on who's willing to talk to me."

The challenge hung between them and static crackled in the air, waiting for one of them to break. Mrs. Campbell glanced back and forth as if she had seen that kind of challenge from Dean before and it was nothing new to her. Then Dean smiled and his entire presence warmed a few degrees.

"Great," he said. "What are you doing Wednesday night?"

Castiel nearly let himself swallow too hard and put his attraction on display. "I have no plans as of this moment."

"You do now. If you want to know the truth about what's going on down here between colored folks and white folks, then you need to come to our next sit-in. Watch for yourself. It's a whole different experience being there in person instead of watching it at home while you eat TV dinners." One corner of his brow vaguely lifted as he issued the challenge, thinking maybe Castiel wouldn't take it. Maybe others had refused before too. "What do you say?"


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> WARNING: This chapter contains depictions of heroin use by Sam Winchester, as well as racial language by Dean Winchester describing 1960s in America as a negative thing.

"No, Gabriel, you can't let her stay out that late. It's a school night. I don't care if she says you're not being fun. You're not supposed to be fun right now and neither am I. Mom and Dad aren't here anymore. It's up to us to make sure the girls don't end up pregnant or diseased before they graduate high school."

Gabriel sighed on the other end of the phone line in Chicago while his sister – their sister – Tessa threw a fit in the background. "She wants to see that boyfriend of hers again, like she doesn't see him every day." That last part came out in such an elevated voice that he could only be shouting it to their sister over his shoulder in a resentful tone. Lowering his voice again, he continued speaking to Castiel. "She ran upstairs and slammed the door. Don't worry. I got it. Neither one of them are used to me acting like the responsible one. I guess it's kind of my fault."

"Is she going to school at least?" Castiel asked.

"Yeah."

"Well, that's better than I expected. She's been talking about dropping out lately and I'm trying to keep her from doing that." As he sat on the edge of his bed in the Memphis motel room, Castiel rubbed a tension headache from the left side of his skull. "What about Hannah? Is she fine?"

"She's good," Gabriel assured. "Tessa isn't that bad, really."

"She's not grieving."

"She will."

The truth of it sat between the brothers over the phone line from hundreds of miles apart. Silence divided them for a moment, yet brought them together in their quest to keep the Novak family from disintegrating. Gabriel was the only other person in the world who could understand what he was going through. He had to remember that and he had to make sure they stayed working together instead of butting heads, which happened more often than he liked to admit.

"I have to get ready to go. I'm already late," said Castiel, looking at the bedside clock.

Gabriel unleashed a long whistle. "At this hour? Who is she?"

It made Castiel laugh, although he worried about the day his family would find out just why he stayed a bachelor year after year. "I'm not here to meet women. I'm going to take a look at a lead on my story. There's a sit-in happening tonight on the other side of the city and one of the participants invited me to document it."

"You're such a party animal."

"Nobody in this family does it like you," Castiel retorted.

Once the Novak brothers said good night and hung up the phone, Castiel dressed in at least part of his suit. He realized early on in his time in Memphis that most people didn't bother to wear complete suits unless they were going to church, a funeral, a wedding, or something else formal like that. The people who organized sit-ins, according to his research, were encouraged to dress well so that no one could say they were degenerates. They were taught to understand how they represented the struggle for the rest of the country and they needed to give appropriate appearances of respectability in a situation that often turned violent and oppressive. Castiel decided to follow their lead if only to blend in a little more. He put on a clean white button-down shirt and put a somber blue tie around his neck. Although he didn't wear it, he still carried his suit jacket just in case the other men participating that night wore theirs.

Dean Winchester had told him two days before that he could be found at Sun Studios and that was where they should meet. Even if he wasn't performing live at the moment in solidarity with the struggle, as he put it, he was still recording a new album that he hoped to release the next year. Castiel rubbed his jaw, looking in the mirror, and wondered if he should have shaved that morning or if Dean liked stubble.

Then he caught himself hard in the next second. Thoughts like that weren't professional and they weren't welcome where most men were concerned. It didn't matter that he was insanely and instantly attracted to the Winchester man as soon as he set eyes on him. Romances weren't in the cards for Castiel after his parents' death and they especially weren't in the cards for men who desired other men. He could live with the defect in himself but he needed to be careful about projecting his unwelcome feelings on other men. Not to mention the serious job he had to do! Yes, Castiel glowered at himself one last time in the mirror before he grabbed his leather bag and left the motel.

*****

"Damn it, Sam. Wake up!"

A hard crack across Sam's face registered somewhere in the back of his mind. Pain didn't register. Only mild amusement. Low chuckling rumbled through his chest and he listened with detached interest as if watching the proceedings from somewhere else in the room instead of slumped on the floor against the leg of his bed frame.

"You did it again, didn't you? Shit."

"Ah, Jess, baby. I'm cool," he slurred.

"You're not cool. Look at yourself! You didn't even pull the needle out of your arm this time." Carefully, expertly, Jessica Moore knelt on the floor next to Sam and slid the needle free of the thick blue vein in his left arm. With her tender touch, he only felt the smallest sting and it made a hazy smile form on his dry lips. "I was only gone a few days. Dean's gonna kill me. Where'd you get the junk?"

"Dean doesn't need to know. I'm not a baby."

"Yeah?" Her soft watercolor eyes blazed up to his face as she pressed the sleeve of her shirt to the bloody drip. "You sure look like one to me lyin' here on the floor with drool runnin' down the side of your mouth. Obviously you need a babysitter."

Sam grunted noncommittally. Her admonishments ran too fast through his brain and he couldn't quite catch their meaning.

"Where'd you get the junk?" Jess asked again.

"Skinny Jack came down to see his sister. Brought some new stuff from Europe with him. Didn't even ask me for cash. Nobody's hurt. I got it free."

"Nobody's hurt," she muttered in a quiet mocking tone, shaking her head at his arm. A flood of sorrow and frustration fought its way to the surface of her sweet face as she lifted her sleeve from his arm to see if it stopped bleeding. Mouth pursed in a hard line, she tried blinking back tears that spilled down her cheeks anyway. "Why do you keep doing this to yourself? I love you, Sam. I can't stand watching this happen again and again."

Jess' pain cut through the comfortable numb sensation Sam craved and it dragged him back to reality as much as it could with the junk still flowing through his bloodstream. He blinked and tried to focus on her long curly blonde hair and her wide set features. The lack of eye contact meant she was hurting more than she wanted him to know. She wanted him to think she was furious instead of wounded. That much seemed clear to him. With his other hand, he reached for the round shape of her cheek and passed a thumb over the wet streak running from her left eye. If she walked away from him, there'd be nothing left. He knew he'd die within a few months. But as she stilled and leaned into his hand, kissing his palm, they both knew she would never stop fighting for his life. If she didn't fight for it, no one would. No one who wasn't obligated by blood and old family promised, he thought grimly.

"I couldn't make it stop," he confessed in a whisper.

She looked at him then with a bit more compassion. "You're seeing things again?"

"Blood. Guns. Death."

A hard, fortifying sigh passed through Jess after a moment of contemplation. "Let's get you into the shower. I'm home now. We can get back on track," she said to both of them as he packed up the remains of his weakness. The spoon, the syringe, the lighter, the rubber tourniquet, the wrinkled plastic bag with the remains of his fix huddled in one pointed corner - it all disappeared into the crochet bag she carried around and Sam knew he'd never see it again.

It didn't matter. He always found a way to get more when his body began to reject the reality of his freakish life. When the vomiting and hallucinations slammed him again, he'd find another fix whether he wanted to or not. And he didn't want to. He desired nothing less than being the man Jess deserved.

*****

Following the deep, booming sound of live music through the old brick building, Castiel trotted across the street toward Sun Studios. Something in him expected a more substantial building in a newer section of Memphis after Elvis and Johnny Cash and other artists made the label so much money. What he found was a simple building with sound booths and technology for mixing and editing the newly recorded music. Hallways and closed doors suggested offices toward the front of the building but he'd followed the music through the back alley.

The second he strode through the alley door, he recognized Dean Winchester's voice singing in a low, seductive melody. A guitar slid beneath his lyrics like bedsheets, rippling and flowing beneath his naked body in bed.

Castiel shuffled and coughed into his hand as if trying to cover up those unwanted thoughts before someone heard them. A man with shirt sleeves rolled to the elbows glanced his way from his post at a mixing board. He gave a short, unconcerned nod and turned his attention back to Dean and his band winding through the remainder of the song. It seemed he was known and expected. Security seemed awfully lax for a building containing various rock acts over the last ten years. It astonished him.

There Dean stood beyond the window, guitar in hand and eyes closed in a perfect moment of artistry as music poured from his lips so close to a microphone. He'd shaved since they last met but the stubble was trying to come back again. His mouth smoothed into a soft line and his head tilted just slightly as the song reached a place of needing a long note. The sound hit a timbre that cut through Castiel's belly. He was in trouble and he knew it then. That was only the third time he'd set eyes on Dean Winchester but he was already so entrenched in attraction that he feared it would compromise his job. Damn it. He needed that job to feed his family. He needed to get himself under control, swallow it down, and be a proper man.

By the time the band finished recording and spoke satisfying sentiments about their work, Castiel had taken to leaning against a back wall with his leather bag over his shoulder. It ached but he didn't want to move. Everything he did, in his mind, told everybody in the building that he had unnatural thoughts about the musician. Be still and no one will know.

"Hey, magazine man! You made it!" shouted Dean, his voice fed through the microphone and the speakers on the other side of the glass.

Castiel's mouth formed a faint smile. "Hello, Mr. Winchester."

As Dean pulled the strap over his head and handed his guitar off to the bass player, he said, "Lemme just finish up with my band and we'll head out."

"Of course."

Castiel wondered how Dean's band felt about their lead singer becoming so political in recent months. They seemed to get along as if they'd known each other since diapers, a sentiment that seemed completely possible in Memphis. That idea seemed so foreign. He couldn't think of anyone he'd known that long except his own family. Spending years locked in his room learning to be a writer was never conducive to building an active social life. But Dean moved so seamlessly between his art and his personal relationships. It was a thing to be admired.

Congratulatory remarks about the music they'd made that day passed from man to man as the band packed up their instruments - all except the drummer. He spoke to an older man in a baseball hat with a periodic gesture to his drum set as if delivering instructions. Castiel took that man to be an assistant or maybe a manager as he watched him deliver similar instructions to another man about all of the instrument cases.

With a cursory glance at his wristwatch, Dean waved goodbye to his band mates and disappeared through a door off the recording booth. He reappeared in the technological room with Castiel through another door, swinging a similar leather bag over his right shoulder.

"Night, Mr. Philips."

"Off to change the world again," replied the man at the mixing board.

Dean smirked. "You know it." His eyes lifted to Castiel's for a moment, though his expression wasn't readable. "Let's go."

"Lead the way," he said.

The two men set off into the Memphis night in Dean's black car, their leather bags placed side by side in the back seat. He smelled of spicy musk and leather, an unspecified development that made Castiel shift in the passenger seat. Defenses kicked in and he let his mind slide into the professional track. Work was the safest course for him. It always was. Literary pursuits kept him sane in the weeks after his parents were killed and they'd keep him sane in the face of unwanted distraction. Mind over matter kept him from becoming too attached to any man.

It surprised him when Dean steered the car closer to the center of the city. He peered through the passenger window as if he could divine where they were headed. For some reason, he expected the activists would focus on targets on the fringes of Memphis where the local police weren't so likely to patrol. They were as courageous as they were ambitious.

"How many activists can we expect tonight?" Castiel asked, looking over at Dean's profile in the driver's seat.

"Six counting me," he replied.

"And are they all black?"

Dean shook his head. "There are a couple of white girls but they don't do these sit-ins too often. It can get hairy so they mostly do administrative work. Organization and stuff." His thick shoulders lifted in a slow shrug. "Anna night turn up tonight through. I heard Theodore's gone and gotten sick. He was gonna be with us tonight but I don't expect he'll show if he's still throwing up. Gotta have your head in the game when it starts getting dicey to keep everybody safe."

"Are you expecting violence this time?"

"I expect violence every time."

The way Dean said it without emotion or fear struck Castiel somewhere in a part of his brain prompting him to think deeper on it. Just what made a man unafraid of being beaten, jailed, or even killed? It suggested something ugly in Dean's past and Castiel wasn't sure if he wanted to uncover it.

Dean leaned toward his car door, driving with one hand, and dug into his back jeans pocket with his free hand. "Here. You better take this." He produced a blade folded into its handle like a pocketknife but it looked decidedly larger. "I'll do my best to keep an eye on you but once these racist dicks realize you're not yelling nigger lover at us with them, they're gonna think you're one of us. You might get hurt."

"I'm merely a journalist here to observe." Still, Castiel accepted the blade anyway.

"You're a Yankee journalist," corrected Dean with an extended finger for emphasis. "They won't like that much. Better fake a drawl if you think you can. And don't get too close or you'll definitely get hit in the crossfire."

"The crossfire?"

Dean looked his way, meeting his eyes in real concern that he couldn't seem to muster for himself. "You'll see."

Hundreds of questions filled Castiel's mind as Dean turned off into a deserted parking lot without the benefit of many streetlights. The car's engine rumbled lower like it understood the heightened tension. Columns of light pointed from the headlights to a series of other cars parked against a battered wooden fence. Several black faced turned and waved when they recognized Dean but more than one set of dark eyes peered at Castiel with unbridled suspicion.

They piled out of Dean's car and he watched the musician greet those people so warmly that Castiel hadn't considered the possibility that they really were his friends. Every tooth in Dean's mouth gleamed white as he smiled, shook hands, and hugged and slapped backs with many of the men. A moment of shame filled Castiel, thinking how inherently wrong and racist it was that he hadn't considered how much Dean cared for those people as friends and extended family. It was ingested in so many people to not even question the separation between the races. He'd never thought of himself as racist before and didn't actively have those thoughts, yet he learned something about himself in that moment. Even people who believed in equality like he did weren't exempt from institutionalized racism.

"Guys, this is Castiel Novak. He's a reporter from Life magazine doing a story on what we're doing here," Dean said, a bit of grandeur in the way he spoke.

A few of them offered polite smiles and shook hands but it was clear they viewed him as something to question.

Dean carried on, chatting away like it didn't matter. "Cas, this here is John, that's Betty and her little girl Esther, over there is Matthew, and the lovebirds Otter and Anna."

"Otter. Interesting name," said Castiel. It was better than expressing his shock about seeing a black man and a white woman holding hands. He'd never seen that before. Their bravery impressed him and he eased into it more as Anna gazed up so lovingly at Otter.

"I'm a swimmer, sir. Best in Mississippi. My given name's Jerrod Smith but hardly anybody knows that anymore."

"Oh, please, you must call me Castiel," he said to all of them, uneasy with anybody calling him sir.

"I dunno," commented Betty, smacking gum. "Everybody here's got a nickname. Better for all of us if the police get hold to anybody, you know. We've been calling Dean here Gibson on account of the guitar he's got."

Anna tipped her chin up at Castiel. "Call him Blue. Look at those pretty eyes."

"Blue it is. Y'all ready?" Betty said.

While they debated what to call Castiel, he hadn't noticed Dean tugging off his flannel shirt and replacing it with a pale green button down fit for a suit. A darker green tie looped around his neck too, an effect which brought out the bright hue of his eyes. He rolled his sleeves to the elbows and looked as respectable and conservative as the others. A quick hand smoothed down his hair and then he rejoined the group in the parking lot.

"What are we gonna do with Esther?" He wiggled his fingers and smiled at the girl to defuse the tension in the night.

"Never you mind," replied Betty, her mother it seemed. "I got my neighbor waiting in the park across from the diner. She's gonna look after our girl until we're done. I couldn't very well leave her at home alone. Besides, she needs to see what the world is like now."

Castiel swallowed back questions about why the girl had no father. Perhaps the woman was widowed.

Nodding, the solution seemed to satisfy Dean. "Let's go. We've got work to do."


End file.
